


We Make Each Other Better

by mintpearlvoice



Category: Escape the Night (Video Blogging RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Best Friends, Epic Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Poisoning, Protective Team, Resurrection, Team Bonding, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-16 23:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15447816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintpearlvoice/pseuds/mintpearlvoice
Summary: "Cause you and me, we make each other betterWe may not be perfect but we're perfect togetherYou and me, we'll make it through whateverWe may not be perfect but we're perfect together" - rosanna's song Perfect TogetherMatt and Rosanna help each other survive.





	1. Benjamin's Smoke

When Rosanna came back from her challenge, alive and safe and whole, Matt felt like everything would be okay.

“I’m a fighter,” Rosanna declared. There were twigs on her coat and leaves in her hair, but her smile was amazing.

Matt punched the air, grinning. “How Rosanna got her groove back!”

“Yeah,” She said. “Wait… hang on, I feel- I feel really weird.” She stumbled a few steps, then sank to her knees. Her shoulders shook as she coughed.

"Oh god- no- Rosanna, you survived, you won, you're okay-"

She clutched her stomach, doubled over and gasping helplessly. Each high, desperate wheezing sound that fell from her lips was like a blow to Matt. Rosanna had come back so proudly, a conquering heroine glorying in her victory. He couldn't lose her now.

"Is this a puzzle?" Joey was asking. "Maybe this is some challenge- guys, guys, look around for clues!" Everyone scattered about the lounge, poking things and looking under furniture.

Rosanna trembled violently, sheer panic in her eyes as she struggled to breathe. It sounded like she wasn't getting any air no matter how hard he tried.

He'd almost lost her. Sitting, waiting, unsure whether or not she was all right… it had been terrifying. He couldn't imagine ever being so helpless. Now she was dying right in front of him. That felt even worse.

“Hey, let’s get you some water,” Matt said, handing her a bottle. “That’ll help, right?”

Rosanna shook her head frantically and tossed the bottle away. "No- Matt, it's poison- help me-"

"The smoke begins to make her hallucinate. You must aid me; keep her still," Calliope said, drawing near. Rosanna seemed frightened of her, cringing back.

Who did he trust- his longterm friend, or this mysterious woman he barely knew? Then Rosanna did something that made up his mind. 

"Don't touch me!" she shrieked, batting randomly at the air. The movement sent her into another fit of agonizing-sounding hoarse coughs. Matt's own chest ached in sympathy. “You can’t kill me! I won!”

It seemed like she thought the Man with No Name was coming for her. Like she still wasn’t safe. Matt caught her in his arms. “Stay still, okay? I got you. You’re safe.”

Calliope pulled a bundle of dried leaves from her satchel and lit them with a lighter. Waving the burning bundle in spirals, she chanted in a strange language. “To draw out the dark magic,” she explained, then resumed her chant.

Rosanna took miserable tiny shallow gasps, her chest not even expanding, and even that effort seemed to cause anguish. Without enough air to sob, she silently trembled, tears in her eyes.

  
He hated how miserable and helpless she looked. Hated that he couldn’t whisk away her pain, that all he could do was watch and keep her still.

She thrashed weakly, aimless flailing, but he wrapped his arms around her even tighter. “Nope. Not letting you go.”  
Calliope chanted louder, wafting the smoke in different directions. Her dark eyes seemed to glow gold.

  
Rosanna went very still in his arms. But before he could panic, she leaned forward and retched. Curls of acid-green smoke cascaded from her mouth, melting away from nothingness before they reached the floor.

  
“That’s really nasty,” Joey observed from the other side of the room.  
“Ohmigod so gross,” Nikita agreed.

  
Matt didn’t give a fuck if the smoke stained his shoes, as long as Rosanna was breathing again.  
Every muscle in her neck and shoulders felt painfully tight under his steadying hands. Maybe he wasn’t as tough as Joey or Manny, but his fingers were pretty ripped from so much button-mashing. He dug into the knots of tension, smoothing them out until her shoulders sagged away from her ears.  
When she exhaled slowly, he let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

  
“How are you feeling?” Calliope asked, peering at Rosanna with her odd, searching gaze.  
“Better, thanks.” Her voice was tiny and raspy, and speaking made her cough, but it was as good to hear as the level-up sound effect in Pokémon. She turned to him, clearly trying to smile. “Sorry I scared you.”

  
You fucking terrified me, Ro, he wanted to say. As long as you’re alive, I can pretend survival is selflessness. That I need to stay alive to shelter you. If I lose you, I’ll have to think about how fucking scared I am to die. This isn’t a video game where I can restart from save point. This is for real. And it would hurt. But telling her all that would only frighten her, so he smiled back and ruffled her curls, making her giggle. “No worries, Ro. I’m just glad you’re all right.”


	2. First Aid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Funhouse Man injures Matt, Rosanna uses her first aid knowledge to help.

When the funhouse man came around with his seltzer can and sprayed at the bars to startle everyone, the spray caught the side of Matt’s face.  
“Fuck! What the hell was in that? Ah shit, it’s burning my skin, fuck- you guys, it really hurts-“  
He cried out in agony and almost tumbled. Joey managed to steady him.  
“Lean on me,” Joey said. They made it back to the lounge.

  
When Rosanna saw Matt struggling, she leapt to her feet. What if something had gone wrong with the harp? Would she have to watch him die again? “Matt, what’s wrong?”  
“Something that motherfucker had in his giant clown seltzer can. Caught me right in the face.” Even talking seemed to cause him pain, and Joey was barely able to hold him up.  
Safiya bit her lip. “Umm. What do we do now?”  
Rosanna took a deep breath. Don’t panic, she told herself.  
“Does this lounge have a first-aid kit?”  
“I’m pretty sure I spotted one under here,” Safiya said.  She found one under the table and tossed it to Rosanna.  
“Okay. I got this, Matt. Hand me that water bottle?”  
She poured some cool water onto a gauze pad and pressed it against Matt’s face. When she removed it, he winced, but she quickly squeezed out some aloe vera gel and rubbed it over his singed stubble. She worked slowly and methodically, like she was putting a perfect coat of fondant on a cupcake, covering the blotchy red spatters where he’d been burnt. “Better?” she asked when she was finished.  
He groaned, but his tense frame relaxed back onto the couch. “How do you know about first aid?”  
“Unfortunate deep-fryer incident. Let’s just say funnel cakes are not for the faint of heart. Afterwards, I took an emergency first aid class.” She moved to put the first aid kit away, but Matt caught her sleeve.  
“Can you… stay here with me for a second? I just really want to hold you. To remind myself that I’m alive and I can touch things. Feel things. I don’t know, it sounds kind of stupid-“  
She shook her head vehemently. “Hugs are my third favorite thing in the world. They’re right up there with cupcakes and unicorns.”  
Sometimes hugging really tall people was awkward. They were bony, or they didn’t know where to put their arms. But she always felt like she fit perfectly against Matt, tucked in small and secure. He was back. Here. Hugging her. Even his smell was the same: laundry detergent, vintage leather jacket, Earl Grey tea.  
But she could feel him shaking, breath uneven. Struggling to hold back sobs.  
“Did I hurt you?”  
“No, it’s just-“ He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Without them, she could see the shine of tears. He looked young and very tired. “I miss Stephanie. I miss her smile and the way her hair smells and… fuck, Ro, she’s pregnant. She’s pregnant with my actual child. We made an entire human being and I have to be there for her- all I could think about when I was dying was that I would give anything to just hold her one last time. Rosanna, if I don’t make it back, you have to tell her- tell them-“  
Matt sounded so heartbroken, but she had to stay whole. Had to be strong and cheer him up.  
“You’re going to be able to tell her yourself. Your son’s first word is going to be “Steam sale” and you’ll vlog it when he learns to walk. If you can beat Five Nights at Freddy’s and the sequels, you can survive this hellhole. I believe in you, and I’m never wrong.”  
“You’re going to make it home too, right?” His voice was full of almost childlike hope.  
She smiled sadly. “I’m a fighter.”  
But she wasn’t a genius like Matt and Safiya, or gifted with paranormal powers like Joey, or sassy and badass like Nikita, or strong like Manny. She was brave and she had a good heart. But would that be enough for her to survive? All she could do is hope, but there was no way of knowing. In Everlock, the only certainty was death.  
Rosanna snuggled deeper into her best friend’s sturdy arms and buried her face in his shoulder. She couldn’t let him see her cry.


	3. Club Undead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosanna joins the world's shittiest club: people who have been brought back from traumatic death. Matt and Joey help her recover from the witches' poison.

“We need to go back.” Calliope stated the moment they’d cleansed the artifact.

Matt frowned. “I thought you said there was nothing we could do for her?” He didn’t want to see her body.

“Not then. But now that the artifact has been cleansed... come, we must hurry!” She sprinted from the room, her dark skirts flying around her, and everyone followed.

The witches were gone, just like how the other guardians of the artifacts had vanished. But Rosanna was still there, pale under the moonlight with her clothes ripped off. She was split open and bleeding. Cut all over. Occult symbols etched messily into her limbs, and one long slit all down her torso. He wanted to throw up, but there was nothing in his stomach. Only Joey’s hand on his back kept him moving forward through the night.

“Her soul still lingers,” Calliope proclaimed, draping the body- Rosanna’s body- in a fallen witch’s cloak.

“The forest between the pathways,” Joey murmured vaguely, eyes seeming distant. “I was there in between everything.”

Joey had told him haltingly about the agony of death. How it had felt like being punched at first. Then the awful cold, the leaden feeling in his limbs. The struggle to split the boards of his coffin, to claw from his grave.

Matt remembered something similar. The blows descending over and over, explosions of pain. How he’d struggled to protect his head, only to feel his fingers crack.

Rosanna’s hugs had been there for him, soothing away the horror of his slow, brutal murder. Her hands in his hair easing the memory of how that blow had cracked his skull. She’d wiped the dried blood from his forehead and wiped the awful past away.

He’d hoped she’d been luckier. Died with a single stab.

Instead she’d been left to slowly bleed out, alone and naked in the cold.

“I can bring her back,” Calliope muttered.

“Wait. You could have saved everyone?” Manny burst out.

“No. Just her. Because I know the spell that was used to kill her, the potion used to weaken her body.” She weighed a fallen knife in her hand. “I know this knife well enough to heal the cuts that is has left.”

Nikita raised a hand. “Hold up, girlfriend. What?”

“I must show you something; do not be frightened.”

“I don’t think anything could scare me anymore,” Joey pointed out with a trembling smirk.

Calliope drew towards the altar, her steps slow. “Moonlight, burn through my disguise. Reveal the truth to these travelers’ eyes-“ She threw her arms wide and turned her face to the moon. Twisting, spiraling horns burst though her hair; her eyes burned with an unholy golden light.

She was a witch.

“Nope,” Nikita said instantly, “bye, bitch-“

“You’re about to catch these hands-“ Manny said simultaneously.

“If you hurt her, you will die,” Mortimer pointed out, an eerie calm in his voice.

“Right,” Calliope said. “Getting the demon out of you- that has to be next on our to-do list.

Calliope, who’d helped them so selflessly, was a witch?

“Who are you, how did you- what-“

“We don’t have time for the full story. But if a witch can experience true love with a human, she’s freed from the darkness and no longer needs to kill. I have most of my powers, but I’m nothing like my sisters.”

“Okay, what do we need to do?”

She held up a silver dagger and a small bowl that looked made of bone. “A year of your life. From all of you.”

When the dagger pierced Matt’s skin, he instantly felt freezing and exhausted. The world’s worst hangover, plus being naked in February sleet, plus pulling multiple all-nighters.

Nikita went pale; Joey shuddered.

“Manny?” Matt prompted when he wouldn’t hold out his hand for the cut.

“She voted for me.”

“Bitch, I swear to god-“ Joey started.

He rolled his eyes. “Okay. Fine.”

His eyeliner instantly melted, running down his face. Matt figured he looked as bad, but didn’t care.

Calliope began to draw symbols on Rosanna’s skin with the mingled blood. Sparks of golden light swirled around her as she chanted. “Hoof and horn, hoof and horn, all that dies shall be reborn… corn and grain, corn and grain, all that dies shall rise again…” Matt had never believed in the supernatural before tonight, but he could feel the magic pouring from Calliope like static electricity from a plasma ball.

“I feel like I know where she is,” Joey said dreamily. “Not the Society’s outpost in the ghostlands, it hasn’t been that long... but there’s fog, and a forest-“

“If you can reach her, if you can go in after her- do so,” Calliope said, her gaze still focused on Rosanna. “Her soul flees in its fear.”

“Matt, I’m bringing you with me,” Joey said.

“You’re the one who does shit with crystals- you have magic experience. I know the Sims cheat codes.”

“I trust you. So does she. That’s what matters most.”

“Okay, what do I do?”

“Give me your projective hand. Your other hand. Imagine a cord stretching between us.”

He pictured an old-fashioned telephone cord linking their wrists. Then the world shimmered and faded; for a moment, he glimpsed himself and Joey from a distance, slumped against the altar. The next thing he knew, they were standing in the woods outside Everlock.

A figure flickered through the trees. He recognized her hair. “Ro!”

“Don’t hurt me,” she cried in a broken voice, and fled into the thick growth like a frightened deer.

“Rosanna, it’s me, Joey. I’m here to take you home- you have to go back.

“…Joey?” Her voice drifted through the trees. She sounded like she didn’t remember him.

“And Matt’s here too.”

“I don’t want anyone else to die,” she whispered.

If he could chose between being beaten to death with an iron crowbar again, and hearing his bestie sound so tiny and helpless, he’d choose the crowbar. At least physical pain had an end.

“Where are you, Ro?” Joey said to the dark forest, his voice soft and coaxing.

Then a small, barefoot figure stepped out from the trees.

She was wearing a formerly white nightgown soaked with blood. Her skin was corpse-pale, ghost-pale, hair in lank tangled around her heart-shaped face. “I don’t want to go back.” She staggered towards them, collapsed into the dead leaves. “Please don’t make me- it hurts so much. My throat was on fire. I could feel it... like bugs crawling into my stomach... please don’t make me go back, I can’t...”

Matt knelt beside her, taking her hand. Her skin was ice cold, and he slipped his jacket off and settled it around her shoulders. “Ro, it’s okay, baby girl. We’re going to take you home. Home to your body, home to Mike and Cookie and Los Angeles. Okay?”

She blinked up at him, tears on her long lashes. “Will it hurt?”

“We’re going to take care of you,” Joey said. Sometimes he just radiated a particular magic; half his inhuman beauty, half the calm and confidence in his voice. He could have said any bullshit and you would have believed him.

Hell, for an instant, Matt believed him.

“Can’t walk,” she mumbled, and slumped down as if even that effort was too much.

Rosanna was so short he could pick her up easily; too weary to wrap her arms around him, she just laid her head on his shoulder like an exhausted child. As they started back the way they’d came, he exchanged a glance with Joey. He knew how much it hurt to come back to life.

***

It had taken so long to die. She’d hoped the witches would just slit her throat. Stab her. The way Safiya had died; vibrant one moment, still the next.

Instead they’d drawn it out for what felt like hours. Sliced off her coat and dress, exposing her to the bite of winter.

“What a sweet little cupcake. So innocent. Never a mean thought in her head...”

The serrated blades had felt like fire licking over her skin as they’d carved occult symbols into her limbs with scraping cuts and uneven hands. She had nothing to erase the way their brew had stung her mouth, and the taste of poison and vomit overwhelmed her once more with every breath. Her stomach twisted like something inside was trying to claw its way out.

Be brave, Matt had said, and she held in her screams as long as she could. Until she knew her friends wouldn’t feel guilty if she wept.

She’d never been brave or strong or resourceful like Matt and Joey. She was just kind and a good friend. When it came to surviving, that meant nothing here.

When the knife had pressed to her throat she’d closed her eyes, certain that this was it- goodbye, living- but instead they’d just scraped down her torso, taking away a single layer of skin. Like a paper cut, only all down her body.

“I said I’d slit you from crotch to throat,” a witch said, grinning wickedly down at her.

The next cut, they went deeper, twisting the jagged blades. Every heartbeat seemed to drive more strength from her body. She couldn’t even struggle, not when pain overwhelmed her this much. The wind against her bare skin, cold stone on her back, their awful smiles as they raised the knives-

Please, let this be the cut that killed her, let her not have to suffer any longer. Let Matt and Joey never find out how much she suffered, because even though the knife is twisting in her guts, it would hurt a million times worse to lose the friends she loved.

The witch raised her knife- and faded away in a shower of gold.

Wind scythed through cold air; Rosanna became aware that she was looking at her body from a long way away. Then the dark silent woods were all around her, the witches’ laughter echoing in her ears.

They were chanting and singing. She ran as far and as fast as she could, heedless of the branches in her face and the sharp thorns on the ground. Only escaping mattered.

When at last she could no longer hear their voices, she curled up in a little hollow and covered herself with crinkly dried leaves that smelled of rich autumn decay. The soil was shot through with sharp frost and numbed her fingers and toes.

All she wanted was to be so teeny-tiny that no one would ever bother hurting her again.

Then Matt and Joey had arrived.

The pain had filled up her entire world. Now it was Matt who overwhelmed all her senses. His good smell, like a puppy, like home; the rough weave of his jacket and the soft interplay of textures on his neck where short hair gave way to vulnerable skin. The way he held her so easily, like she weighed the same as Blueberry.

Joey walked next to them. To her spirit-sight, he glowed as if lit from within. Power poured off him like a cloak made out of glitter, and his chattering voice was a song. He was going on about his dogs or something; when he ruffled her hair, she beamed up at him, and he grinned back.

How could anyone hurt her when her best friends were so close?

Then she slammed back into her body. There was the hot dull throb where a witch had banged her head against the stone to silence her, and the raw stinging cuts all over her body, and the way the center of her had been torn apart.

“The earth, the air, the water the fire, return return return...” Calliope’s song was like a silver net trapping her in her body. Joey and Matt had said it wouldn’t hurt. They had lied.

They’d looked into her eyes and lied.

***

Matt felt like he was going to throw up. The way she’d been cut up so completely and ruthlessly. Her whole defenseless body was sticky with dried blood. The look in her eyes: betrayed and hurt. She hadn’t wanted to be brought back to life, and guilt chilled him even more than the cold Everlock wind.

“The earth, the air, the water the fire...” Calliope continued to sing, but her voice sounded hoarse and was faltering.

“I got you,” Mortimer said as he hurried to her side, and “Take whatever you need-“

Without looking, Calliope shot out a hand and grabbed his wrist. What looked like fire poured down his veins and into her hand, and she stood taller. He faltered, but remained standing.

The slit up Rosanna’s torso wavered and closed, leaving only a thin pink line behind, and the occult marks carved into her shoulders likewise faded. She sat bolt upright; Matt winced as she retched up what sounded like every meal of the past week.

She didn’t protest when they took turns carrying her back to the arcade lounge.

Sweetheart, Manny said gently, you look like shit, and she smiled through her tears. He and Nikita fussed over her, wiping the globs of half-digested food from her hair with micellar water makeup wipes. Nikita brushed her tangled curls and maked two perfect French braids, her fingers soft and soothing in Rosanna’s messy hair. Manny tilted her chin upwards to dust blush over her cheeks. “Smile for me? Gorgeous. You’re perfect.” He sounded like he was about to start crying. That’s right; if she hadn’t been there, Manny would have been the one sacrificed. “It’s okay,” she whispered. He sniffled, nodding, and took a moment to steady himself.

“There you go!” Nikita said, a little too loudly and brightly. “You look amazing. Gorgeous.” She flipped open her contact mirror, and Rosanna managed a tentative smile at her own reflection. Okay, she still looked scared and pale, but there was some color in her cheeks and she wasn’t covered in vomit. A good step up from walking corpse.

Matt and Joey were helping Calliope mix something.

“Unicorn powder,” Calliope called, not looking up from the glowing Tupperware. She was stirring something slowly and evenly, as if making simple syrup or chocolate fondue.

“Here,” Joey said, handing her a little bottle. She added a few glittery drops.

“Fairy dust?”

Matt sorted frantically through a big wooden box. “Fairy dust, fairy dust... here!”

She uncorked the bottle, sprinkled in a pinch.

“Are you cooking?” Rosanna asked, interest starting to stir. “Can I help-“

For someone so delicate, Nikita was surprisingly strong. “You’re staying right here, babe. I want to promote your new cooking line on my channel and I need you to describe the colors to me so I can figure out what kind of makeup look to do.”

Manny and Nikita asked her simple questions with easy answers. About what each product looked like and what it was supposed to make. Manny was big and solid and warmer even than Matt and Joey, a furnace in velvet, and Nikita’s long nails moved soothingly over her scalp. But it grew harder and harder to talk, the pain in her stomach building to unbearable. She leaned forward and retched, but there was nothing left to come up, and the effort strained her muscles.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” she heard Manny saying. His hand ghosted across her shoulderblades, but she twitched away. Every sensation was overwhelming- like being stabbed over and over.

“Guys, Calliope, hurry up with that potion,” Nikita called. A hand on her forehead made her head throb. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Seriously. She’s burning up.”

“Hey, Ro, sweetheart.” Matt was there, lifting her from the floor, and she fell against him.

“Make it stop hurting.” It was all she could whisper.

“Fuck, Calliope, what did your sisters do to her?” There was a note of cold anger in Joey’s voice, the volume stabbing at her ears.

“Shh,” Matt cautioned, stroking her hair. She still hurt all over, but he was softer than the floor.

“What. Did they do.” Joey’s whisper was so cold; her eyes cracked open. He was trembling with anger, shirtsleeves rolled up to expose corded forearms.

Calliope, still stirring, sighed. “Your brews were a mixture of various liquids. Licorice, vinegar, et cetera. Hers was different- pure poison, each sip eating at her organs. She would never have made it through the skein without throwing up blood. Now that she’s been brought back to life, it’s still damaging her.”

“I’m so sorry, Ro,” Matt whispered, holding her close. His gentle touch brushed across the scratches on her wrists, her neck; he lifted her briefly, and then the couch gave way under her curled-up body. He was whispering to her, saying soft things in a low, gentle voice: you are so fucking brave, I am so proud of you, such a survivor, a fighter.

“Hey, Rosanna.” That was Joey, padding over. “Calliope made you something special. Want to taste-test?”

The witches’ brew had been thick and black and gloopy, like the tar in which Joey had found the Lazarus coin. Sour and acrid with indecipherable chunks.

What Joey was holding out to her in a goblet or carved crystal looked like the exact opposite.

It was perfectly clear, but it glittered with tiny sparkles. Rainbows played over its surface, and steam wafted up in inviting curls.

Her stomach clenched.

“I don’t know if I can drink anything,” she admitted softly. It hurt to breathe, hurt to talk. “I don’t know if I can keep anything down...”

“I believe in you, and I think you can do this,” Matt said seriously. “Baby sips, Ro. Just try one sip and see if you can keep it swallowed.”

There was so much hope in his voice. He believed in her. And she didn’t want to let him down again.

Matt and Joey helped her sit up. She felt like their hands were keeping her from flying away: Joey’s hand a warm weight on her knee, Matt rubbing the back of her neck.

This isn’t poison... I’m safe.

“You are,” Calliope agreed, even though she hadn’t spoken out loud.

The first sip tasted like perfect hot chocolate fresh from the stove, with melted marshmallows and whipped cream- actual whipped cream, not that canned stuff- swirled in, and she almost moaned.

“Hey, you swallowed it! That’s awesome,” Joey said, doing jazz hands. His voice went up an entire octave on the last word, and Rosanna could tell he was trying to make her laugh. It worked. She took another sip, gasped. Now it tasted totally different: funnel cake with a light, elegant dusting of powdered sugar. The next sip was caramel popcorn; after that, strawberry lemonade, then lavender buttercream she’d had inside a Parisian macaron.

“Yaaas, Jetsetter! You go, girl!” Nikita clapped her hands.

Manny started a chant of “chug, chug, chug,” and everyone joined in. When Rosanna finished, she held the Crystal goblet aloft triumphantly, then dabbed. Everyone cheered. She hoped the Carnival Master heard it and quakes in his non-existent boots. Did that freaky furry demon even wear clothes?

How you feeling, fighter? Matt said.

The magic potion had warmed her from the inside out, washing away the pain. “Good,” she managed.

“Sleepy?”

She was leaning against Joey, who seemed inclined to endure it. “Mm-hmm.”

“Go to sleep, Ro,” Matt told her. “We’ll be right here when you wake up.”

She’d expected nightmares, but there was no terror. Just Calliope’s magic wafting over her skin.

***

 

“So she’s okay, right?” Matt asked Calliope. Even with makeup on, Rosanna seemed so small and exhausted.

“To a point.” Calliope had looked better, too; pale and drawn, leaning against Mortimer just to stay upright. “The four years I drew, one from each of your lifespans.. each one will keep her wound closed for an hour.”

“So we have until dawn... and then two more hours,” Nikita said.

“After that, her wounds will begin to re-open. Unless..”

“Unless what?”

“Unless the Carnival Master gets her. He’s mainly after me, Mortimer- and you, Joey.  His child, who turned away from his mission of darkness to aid his enemies. The man so pure of heart that corruption could alter his nature. And a wizard so powerful that whoever gains possession of his soul could rip whole dimensions and timelines apart. But as for Rosanna-“

Joey held up a hand, making a unique facial expression that Matt thought of as “Joey reacts to Cringe Content.” “Oh my gosh. Hold up. I’m a wizard?”

“Why do you think the mansion called to you in your dreams? Or why my mother was so desperate to strike you down? You surround yourself with crystals because they resonate with your power, and you hear meaning in the howls of dogs.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, less rattled than Matt might have expected. “I mean, I thought that was a trauma symptom, but... good to know.”

“But your head is like a motel. No shields, open to all comers. My father wants to kill you before you can be trained. To feast on your raw power.”

“We won’t let that happen,” Nikita swore, grabbing Joey’s hand, and Calliope gave her a wolfish smile.

 “Good.”

While his friends examined the map, Matt drew Calliope aside. “Okay. So Joey’s some sort of super high level caster, Mortimer can resist his demon bullshit, and he’s pissed at you because he sucks and your family is awful, and if you came back to the future with us I’m 99% sure my wife would straight-up adopt you. But what does he want with Ro?”

My Ro, he almost said. If he talked like that, people in his own era would think they were secretly dating or having sex. But it was nothing like that. They just belonged to each other. Needed each other.

People should be able to exist as two halves of the same soul without the world assuming they’re going to bang.

He needed her light so much.

“My family gains strength from eating souls. Rosanna’s soul... everyone here has hated or been cruel or despaired. Except her. There is nothing but pure light in her heart. For a demon or witch, nothing would taste sweeter than her tears. The witches tried to draw out her death. My father... he wouldn’t be merciful enough to let her die. He would break her again and again until nothing was left, and send his consciousness back through time to break her again.” Her dark gaze fixed on his. “An eternity of undiluted hell.”

“Got it,” Matt said. “All the more reason to smash that motherfucker into the ground, right?”

Calliope nodded fiercely. “Indeed.”

He joined his friends at the map, filled with even more determination.

They weren’t just fighting for the town of Everlock. They weren’t just fighting for their lives. They were fighting for Ro’s very existence.

And that gave him a reason to fight to survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both of the chants Calliope uses are existing Wiccan/Reclaiming chants:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CnUGaH51IA  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cpzcVd94Rw
> 
> Also, I take commissions! Hit me up at kayla-bird.tumblr.com.


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